Helpless

I wish I could take the pain from a child. I would endure the pain 200% if it meant no pain for my children. Back in June/July 2010 our son had a pneumothorax. A pneumothorax is a collasped lung. It's a collection of air around the outside of the lung. It puts pressure on the lung so it cannot expand while breathing. In our sons case it's called a spontaneous pneumothorax. A small area in the lung that is filled with air, called a bleb, ruptures, and the air leaks into the pleura space between the chest wall and the lung. June 2010 our now seventeen year old son had two attempts of the smaller chest tubes which resulted in the largest chest tube that admitted him for four days after a seven day ordeal. It changed his 2010 summer. Now nine months later he's in the hospital with another spontaneous pneumothorax. I've been with him at the hospital all day. He's been admitted and another chest tube has been put in. Good news is the doctor was able to sinch out 700 ml of air, imagine drinking a bottle of pop! That's what came out of my sons chest tonight. As his Mother I'm holding it together because I have to be strong for him. In my heart I'm crying. The doctor tonight has made arrangements for his transport by ambulance to the Victoria hospital tomorrow (Saturday) morning. From there we will be seeing a Thoracic lung specialist and our son will undergo lung surgery on Sunday. The lung surgery should prevent any further pneumothorax's in his right lung as he's now classified as chronic. This doesn't ensure possible future complications with his left lung. Right now we don't know why this is happening except for his body structure is lean. He's not a smoker. Symptoms of a collapsed lung is sharp chest pain, shortness of breath, painful to breathe, chest tightness and in our sons case, throbbing back pain generally localized around the collapsed lung. We're hoping that it's just a spontaneous pneumothorax and not finding any type of underlying lung diseases but time will tell with tests. I needed to write in hopes to get some sleep. Above pictures, left is from last year, June 2010. The right picture is from tonight. (Friday) I don't know what the next week will entail except that our son resembles a stabbing victim with multiple scars from chest tubes. From June until now our son has been worried that he would have another incident. His worries have become reality. As I remained strong and I will remain strong, our son teared and I wanted nothing more to take his pain away. I feel like I felt nine months ago, helpless. It's unfair and young people shouldn't have to worry about their health. As we move forward dealing with this unexpected turn of Spring Break, I know there will be positive results in the end. "There will be positive results" because right now, I don't believe it will get any worse. I just wish right now, I can have his pain instead and his worries because a teenager doesn't need any extra complications in their life. He doesn't need this............I'll be back with something positive soon. :(